walk-out in five London hospitals. Even the normally conservative Middlesex teaching hospital had WEEKLY aroused opposition. tors used to work a basic 80-hour week for salaries as low as £1,900 explained that this worked out at the 'princely sum of 40p a hour.
overtime - and the chronically under-staffed and under-financed NHS is absolutely dependent on overtime - will only be paid 30 percent of their basic rate for these extra hours. This is literally the fact that those who have to the most under Castle's proposals.
the Government's pay proposals Wise, and a 24-hour stoppage organised by 200 junior doctors The Castle proposals have rightly The junior doca year. One doctor who had worked an average of 116 hours a week Mrs Castle has now introduced a basic 44-hour week. But what the Labour Government has given with one hand it has snatched back with the other. Junior doctors working to take action.
a pay cut. Even more scandalous is work the longest hours will suffer Castle has insisted that unless LOCLOS these measures are introduced then the Healey £6 norm will be breached. If ever the reactionary nature of was exposed, then the present dispute over the doctors' pay has done Castle's proposals also drive doctors into the smothering embrace of the consultants, who are making encouraging noises to their juniors so that they can line them up in support of their selfish campaign to defend private practice. Meanwhile the British Medical Association -the mouthpiece of the consultants -hedges its bets. Although it says the junior doctors should reject the new contract, it urges them not WAIT FOR SANTA!
The BMA is organising - at tortoise pace - a ballot amongst junior Forms for the ballot will go out with the November pay packets, so that the results will arrive with Santa Claus! They are suggesting on the ballot forms three alternative contracts, none of which would put more money in the junior doctors pockets.
The fight of the junior doctors deserves the support of all the trade union movement: Long hours and bad pay work against both the doctors and their patients. Castle's actions are just another attempt by the right-wing Labour leaders to foist the capitalist crisis on the backs of working class patients and the junior doctors and staff of the NHS.
The measures also strengthen the consultants, who themselves are planning a campaign against the health service. If the attacks of the consultants are to be defeated it is essential that the rest of the NHS staff are in a position to fight them rather than be driven into their arms If the junior doctors smash the £6 norm, they will have rendered a service to the entire labour moveBob Pennington
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The strike wave of junior doctors is spreading fast. Doctors working through the North West Area Action Committee have taken action in about 50 hospitals in that area; and there has also been a